The Ten Year Anniversary of Dumbledore's Army
by Epikoinos
Summary: Eight years after the war that changed their lives, a bunch of war veteran twenty-somethings meet to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Dumbledore's Army. Some are starting new families, some are working hard at their carreers and Hannah Abbot haven't figured out what she wants in life yet. But he renewal of old friendships might lead to finding someone to share that life with.
1. Chapter 1

Hannah Abbott was looking at Dumbledore's Army Galleon for the third time this morning. Then she heard someone chuckle and looked up into the face of her boss, Tom the landlord, who was smiling good-naturedly at her.

"Hardly anyone's awake yet, lass", he pointed out. "Keep your mind on your work and time will pass like nothing." He was right, of course; it wasn't likely that any message would appear on the coin for many hours yet. The early mornings were one of the things she didn't like about working at The Leaky Cauldron, and this day was no different. It was half past five, and she was setting the tables for the early breakfasters. She put the golden coin back into the breast pocket of her robes, where she'd feel it when it heated up.

About a month earlier she had gotten an owl from Hermione Granger-Weasley saying to keep an eye on her coin on the fifth of October, the ten year anniversary of the founding of Dumbledore's Army. Hannah had hardly spent a day since without speculating about how the anniversary would be observed. Tom had given her half the day off on the fifth, but he wouldn't join in on the speculation. He'd only listened to her different conjectures and then hummed noncommittally, which made her miss Madam Rosmerta. When Hannah worked at Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade the two of them had been twaddling constantly.

* * *

The warmth started to spread from her breast pocket as Hannah was furiously attacking a spot on one of the tables with a cloth. She threw an eye at her Muggle wristwatch; it was about half past ten. She picked up the Galleon just as Tom came out from the inner room. He went up to her, removing the deep-rooted spot with an offhand wave of his wand, and asked "So, what's it say?"

Hannah looked at the miniature message that had formed where the serial number was on a regular Galleon.

"It says 'Vaulted V 6'… Hm, I didn't know it could do letters."

She wasn't really surprised, though. When Hannah was working at the Ministry Hermione Granger-Weasley had once singlehandedly restored the Ministry's Archives Department after a troll had gotten loose in there, with a bunch of spells she'd thought up on the spot. Of course she could use letters in her fake Galleon messages if she wanted to.

"The Granger-Weasley's live at the Vaulted Villanette, do they not?", asked Tom.

"Yeah, and I guess we're supposed to be there at six", said Hanna.

* * *

At what she thought was six o'clock Hannah therefore stepped out of the fireplace at the Vaulted Villanette, and into complete chaos. The upper part of the room looked fit for a party, with big floating bubbles and dancing garlands in blue, red and yellow, a banner saying "Dumbledore's Army 10 years!" in glowing letters, and a large picture of a badger and a lion standing back to back with wands raised and an eagle soaring above them with a wand in its beak. The lower part of the room, however, was covered in shoes, books, things that would belong on the shelves of Weasleys Wizard Wheezes if they weren't malfunctioning in different interesting ways, feebly stirring garlands and what seemed to be some kind of spilled beverage or potion. The table was not set.

"Er… Hello?", Hannah called out into the house, carefully sidestepping the liquid slowly spreading across the floor.

"Merlin's Knuts!" someone shouted from some other room a few seconds later. There was no indication that Hannah's greeting had been heard, so she left the room, walking through a vaulted corridor towards where she thought the voice had come from.

Peering into the kitchen, Hannah cleared her throat. Her former classmate and Ministry colleague Hermione Granger-Weasley looked up from her violently boiling cauldron with an irritated look that turned into surprise when she saw who it was.

"Oh, hello Hannah, you're early!" she said.

Now it was Hannah's turn to be surprised. Early? Then she realised. She had taken her wristwatch off to take a nap, and then she hadn't put it back on because she was dressing up. She'd kept time with her alarm clock, which she had turned back twenty minutes to give her some time to sleep in in the mornings. She was twenty minutes early.

"Oh no", she exclaimed. I'm so sorry, Hermione…"

She was about to explain her mistake when she took a closer look at the other witch. Hermione had dark circles below her eyes, stains all over her robes, and while half of her hair fell in sleek curls, the other half was a bushy mess. The contrast between the different sides of her head reminded Hannah starkly of the partly party-ed up room she'd just left.

"Er, why don't you go fix yourself up?", she asked, suppressing a smile. "I can take over here."

Hermione looked at her like she was a Patronus, hugged her, and disappeared away further down the corridor.

The kitchen was a complete mess. Luckily, Hannah was great at food magic. After carefully putting a shielding charm all over her dress robes, she got to work. The soup tasted weird until she realized it was probably supposed to be served cold. She quickly cooled it and tasted it again, deciding it only needed a little more seasoning. The sauce was horrible and the potatoes quite overdone. Making a quick decision she made them mash themselves, and turned to the bacon wrapped and plum-stuffed pork loins. She was sure they'd look and smell delicious if they weren't frozen through. With an intricate but neat little spell she'd learned from Tom, she sped up the cooking process and turned back to the sauce. It seemed to be made from a sophisticated recipe, but the execution was all but sophisticated. She decided it was a lost case and started looking for ingredients for a simpler alternative that she could whip up in a few minutes.

* * *

Satisfied, for the time being, with the kitchen situation Hannah went back to the room she'd entered into to see if she could do something about the mess. The mess was nowhere to be seen, though. Instead she found herself face to face with another old classmate, Ronald Weasley, who was stuffing one of the stray shoes into a little beaded bag. Hannah looked down at the floor where the liquid had been. The flooring had a visible tinge of green, but she didn't think she would have noticed if she hadn't been looking for it. Ron saw her glance and caught her eye, hushing and winking.

A few seconds later Hermione entered the room saying "Look who showed up early and saved the day!"

She was carrying a stack of plates with one hand while the other held her wand, making a beautiful lace cloth gracefully float down on the table. Her magenta coloured garment, something between dress robes and a Muggle dress, were floating delicately as well. Hannah noticed that the left side of her hair was still less sleek than the right, but she had cleverly put her hair up in a way so that the beautiful curls covered most of the rougher hair.

Looking at Hermione's intricate hairstyle Hannah suddenly felt a little silly with the pigtails she'd chosen in honour of the Hogwarts nostalgic occasion. At least she had braided shiny blue ribbons into them, which together with her blonde hair and golden necklace matched her blue and gold robes.

"You both look lovely", Ron said, as if he'd been able to hear her thoughts. He was wearing sky blue dress robes that matched his eyes. "Mum insisted on giving us a bunch of home baked cookies, by the way", he added, grabbing a box from the mantelpiece and giving it a little shake.

Hermione gave a relieved sigh. "Harry was going to make his divine treacle tart, but then baby Albus decided to pop out", she explained to Hannah. "We let the responsibility for making dessert over to George and Angelina instead, Merlin help us. Now we will at least have the cookies to serve up if it turns out they made a cake filled with Canary Creams or something."


	2. Chapter 2

The first guest to arrive after Hannah was Dennis Creevey. Hannah thought of Muggle clerics when she saw his black dress robes and solemn face, but the dimples that revealed themselves when he stepped forward to give Hermione a hug somewhat lightened that impression.

"Dennis! I hear you're a fully fledged Unspeakable now," Hermione said into the young man's shoulder. "I'm so happy for you!"

"Thanks, 'Mione," replied Dennis. "I'd tell you all about it, but, you know… Unspeakable."

Hannah was happy to hear Dennis joke. In her memories from the DA days he was not unlike a pixie – small, loud and full of mischief, but after his brother's death he'd silently buried himself in his studies, coming out with nine shining NEWTS. Then he'd immediately started an internship at the Department of Mysteries. During those years when Hannah had worked at the Ministry she had felt a certain kinship with him when they passed each other in the corridors – he always looked as miserable as she felt. Now, when laughter and happiness were steadily seeping back into her own life, she wished for the same for him.

As more guests came through the fireplace and the door, Hannah learned that Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan were engaged, that Cho Chang was now Cho Xu, worked as a Healer and had twins, and that Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood had broken up. Neville had arrived alone, which led to inevitable questions that he answered quickly and quietly. When Luna showed up a short while later and immediately kissed Dean Thomas full on the mouth, Hannah involuntarily glanced at Neville. His round face was part wistful and part wincing. Seamus Finnegan, on the other hand, didn't look all that miffed that his fiancé was kissing someone other than him.

"Luna has never seen the point in confining oneself to just one partner," Hermione quietly explained to Hannah. "She's actually been together with Dean for longer than Seamus has. I think she'll be staying with them now that she's not living with Neville anymore."

All the guests hadn't arrived yet, so people were walking around the room, making small talk. Hannah complimented Dean Thomas on the picture of the badger, the lion and the eagle. With a nod towards Luna he said that she'd helped with it. Together they watched her walk up to Neville, who was sitting in a corner of the room. They talked silently. Luna looked concerned, but Neville gave her a weak smile and shook his head. She then kissed him on the forehead and waltzed away. Dean looked a bit uncomfortable. Hannah considered going up to Neville herself, but just then her best friend swished into the room on a large baby blue pillow, through a window he'd just blasted open with his wand.

Ernie Macmillan had lost both his legs at the Battle of Hogwarts. He'd been saved from bleeding out with a quick "Finit Cruentis" from Madam Pomfrey rushing past. If there had been time to care for him properly immediately after the injury things might have been different, but as it was the curse scars were too nasty for him to get prostheses. Instead, he had acquired a special permission to use a flying pillow. His pillow had a fall-safe charm, was almost as manoeuvrable as a broom and at the simple command "Give me wheels!" it transformed into a Muggle wheelchair, allowing him to move around inconspicuously in the Muggle world. In the wizarding world, however, he was all but inconspicuous. Right now he was hovering in the middle of the room.

"Hello!" he boomed. "I hope I'm not the only one holding you up. I had an unfortunate run in with a hot air balloon on my way here."

With those words he made sure to have the room's full attention, until Harry and Ginevra Potter arrived with their newborn son. At that point Hermione went through the fireplace to fetch baby Rose, and everybody took part in cooing at the babies while Parvati Patil entertained them with a story about her four year old.

"Pritha was at her father's – he's a Muggle – and they were at the playground. Muggle kids have these little brightly coloured plastic buckets that they play with in large boxes filled with sand, and she has a purple one that she loves. But it broke, and some nice parent lent her another bucket. But that one was yellow, and Pritha hates yellow. So Vinay looked away for a second, and when he looked back the new bucket was purple instead. He had to pretend that she'd lost it somehow and give the other parent money to buy a new one. He called me on the telli-phone and was all 'Couldn't she just mend her own instead?' but I guess that's how it is with young magic, and I'm sure there's more to come now that she's started. Almost makes me wish she'd be a bit slower in her development."

But Parvati was beaming with pride, so nobody took that last sentence very seriously.

Hannah ran her hand through Rose Weasley's frizzy little tuft of hair and laughed at the baby's surprised mien. Hannah had always loved being around kids, but lately it had become a bittersweet joy. She'd always thought she'd have her own children by twenty five, but here she was, without even having had a real relationship yet.

At half past six, George Weasley and Angelina Johnson arrived with two huge, unmarked boxes that no one was allowed to touch, and everybody finally sat down to eat.

* * *

"Who do we have to thank for the tasty nourishment?" Lee Jordan asked a while later, chomping on a pork loin. He, along with several other guests, looked expectantly at Ron, who looked at Hermione, who looked at Hannah, who blushed.

"It was a… joint effort," said Hermione. "I made a mess in the kitchen and Hannah here transfigured it into food."

Everybody laughed, but Hannah still felt the need to insist that Hermione was exaggerating and that she'd just given it some finishing touches, and that she'd put too little salt in the replacement sauce.

Hannah's dinner partner was Terentius Boot. They had spent most of the dinner talking about the magical properties of different woods. His interest was from a wand-making perspective, while Hannah had always loved Herbology. Now their subject turned into food magic, until Parvati Patil tapped her wineglass with her wand, turning it into a small bird. Its song caught the attention of the room and people fell quiet as Parvati rose to speak.

"Fellow members of Dumbledore's Army," she began. "When I look around this table, I see many dear friends, but there are also faces I don't often see. But in all of them I see something that I recognize.

We who sit here today are a group of people who came together to study Defence Against the Dark Arts when our teacher wouldn't let us, taking the name of "Army" as a joke. Then a time came when we actually had to defend ourselves against Dark wizards and witches, and we became an army for real. But I like to think that we also became something else.

When Minerva McGonagall welcomed my year to Hogwarts, she said that our House would be "something like your family within Hogwarts". To me, Dumbledore's Army became another such family. When I look at the people in this room I see family.

Another thing we have in common is that we were all changed by the War."

Parvati made a dramatic pause, and Hannah thought about Dennis Creevey's transformation from playful to serious, about Ernie whose pompousness had turned into a jocular joviality, worn as an armour, and about how different her own life would have been if her mother still had been alive, if Justin still had been alive.

Parvati's voice was more strained as she continued.

"As I'm sure all of you know, my best friend Lavender Brown ended her own life two years after the Battle of Hogwarts. But her life had already been taking from her by a man named Fenrir Greyback. The wounds he gave her were too deep to ever quite heal, but she struggled through pain and nightmares. Her hope was to become an Auror and help stop what happened to her from ever happening again, but when she started Auror Training it became clear that her constant pain would make that impossible."

Parvati made another pause. Her hatred and pain had been audible when she talked about what Fenrir Greyback had done to her friend, but as she began speaking again her voice was all tenderness.

"When Lavender turned fourteen I gave her a set of crystal phials for Potions class to replace her old glass set. I chose the most beautiful set I could find. Before Lavender died, she placed those phials around her, and filled them with all her best memories. Three of these memories are memories of Dumbledore's Army.

The first of those memories are of our last ever meeting in the Year of Umbridge. Do you remember? We are practising the Patronus Charm, and all these beautiful pearly creatures are floating about the room, and Harry says "They're not supposed to be pretty, they're supposed to protect you". I made my lark Patronus for the first time that day. And it's one of Lavender's favourite memories, even though she still couldn't make one and was really annoyed. Even though that's when we got caught.

The second one is the meeting we had before Christmas in the Year of the War. We've just made the "Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting" graffiti in the Entrance Hall, and we're talking about how we'll try to get our hands on things to help with the rebellion. And we're giving each other Christmas gifts and they're all candy because Honeydukes was the only shop we were allowed to visit in Hogsmeade. And we're allowing ourselves to feel hopeful because it's Christmas and we're going home to our families."

Hannah remembered that day, of course, but for her the memory had always been tainted by what came after – Luna Lovegood's abduction, and Justin Finch-Fletchley ceasing to give Hannah any life signs.

"And the last one is from those last weeks before the Battle, when most of us were living in the Room of Requirement. It's evening, and Lavender has just won a game of Wizard Skittles when we decide to practise the Patronus Charm again, and she makes a corporeal one for the first time… a beautiful marten… my Patronus is one now."

Parvati briefly closed her eyes, maybe blinking back tears. Hannah at least had some running down her cheeks.

"For Lavender, and I think for all of us, Dumbledore's Army was the thing that made the War bearable. All of us have memories from our time together that will stay with us till the day we die. When I see us here now, still a family after all these years, I do not feel that her death was worth it – never! – but I do feel that I am among people who understand."

Patil had to go quiet again, to take some deep breaths.

"Finally, I just want to thank Padma for helping me write this speech, and propose a toast… for Lavender…"

At the word "toast" Parvati's voice broke, and at "Lavender" she started crying in earnest. As they toasted, Hannah heard her sob "I just miss her so much…" into her twin's dress robes.

From that point, conversation around the table became more serious and subdued. It was like it always was with the War – no one wanted to be the one to bring it up, but everyone still needed to talk about it. They probably always would.

Every now and then someone would rise to make a toast for a fallen friend. They toasted to Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey and Anthony Goldstein. Hannah cried again when Ernie made a toast to Justin.

Then, with her eyes on Hermione, Cho Xu made a toast "for fighting bravely at the Battle of Hogwarts" to the only still living original DA member who wasn't at the party other than Zacharias Smith; Marietta Edgecombe. Everybody, including Hermione, toasted to her.

With the barrier for toasting to living people down, Luna made a toast to Neville, which Hannah thought was a nice gesture. Neville responded with a toast back to Luna. When they'd almost finished eating Padma Davies made a toast to Harry Potter. As if to assure that the toast to him for once wouldn't be the last, Harry then rose with baby Albus in his arms.

"I was going to give a speech," he said hoarsely, "but it had to be scrapped in favour of this little fellow, just like my cake. And after Parvati anything I could say would be coarse in comparison. Still, I'd like to propose a toast to the man Ginny and I named our second son after. To Albus Dumbledore!"

"Albus Dumbledore," echoed the table.

"And to his Army!"

"Dumbledore's Army!"

They finished their plates in silence. Then, George Weasley suddenly jumped up on his chair with a playful smile.

"As Harry failed to make a cake, the honour instead fell to me and Angelina. But we didn't make one either. Instead, let me present to you Weasley's Wizard Wheezes newest product: The "Build-a-Cake"!"


End file.
